Comes A Time!!!
Fucking Epic.

this show is cool. i like the build to close the run on a high point. tour is warming up and the boys hit the road tomorrow after a week n a half in the nyc area.
first set is subtle but excellent performances all around really. pretty flawless first set. a great night for jerry, vocally and guitar wise. llr is the shit, this is a top one for sure. donna sounds great tonight, here and bobby really got it goin on tonight. love the late set bew. dancin is one for all time though i wish there was more moog from keith. great keith night too, great keith/jerr passages on tleo and others.
subtle first set ends high, 2nd set starts high. estimated is pretty fat and a great performance by bobby (and donna) but i still am wanting cassidy and estimated to take off a bit more, as theyve yet to really get everytjing out of it this tour. but its still a new tune and it sounds fucking dope. cool to watch the crowd get into it night to night.
this scarlet fire is fucking great imo. still only like the third or 4th all year and its sounding good. this one is perfectly executed, verry pretty to very chunky groovy fire in smooth, tight manner. not the most over the top scarlet-fire but maybe the best of the tour so far imo.straight to terrapin, also still new (3 this tour so far) - crowd loves it, jer is flawless. then the excellent playin sandwich with a maybe best of all time comes a time. i kinda wish the playin was a little tighter to keep up high energy through end of show, but the jamming is definitely interesting, entertaining and out there.
solid show, solid way to end the new york stand. some all time executions but not a super wild, blow you away on its own grateful dead show. the boys are clearly feelin it, and settirlg the bar very high night to night. 3.5 stars for the show in context of year/tour, 3.5 stars overall as a grateful dead show.

Lesser of the Palladium run. But then it's a May '77, so if you like the tour you'll find plenty here. The show is known for the Brown Eyed Women and for an end-of-show Playing sandwich.

First Set. It takes a bit to get going and there are some out-of-tune problems but Mississippi Half-Step is warmed up by the end. The end jam of Big River is nice and Jer takes extra measures. It's then typical May '77 until they sort of bail on Cassidy. It's as if Jer makes up for it on Deal, just taking off. But that's not the end of the set - there's more. The '77 arrangement of Looks Like Rain is great and a tempered Donna is at her best (though it's far from the tour's best). Not so for Brown Eyed Women, which may even be the year's best. The source on Around the Fire is so good that there must be a clean copy of this show waiting in the vault. Dancin' in the Streets was a tour centerpiece, but then dropped for the rest of the year, save twice in October. This one has a lot of wandering and feeling each other, waiting...maybe for the famous version that came 4 days later.

Second Set. The top of the set is the brilliant part of the show, starting with Estimated. Bobby teases a Lost Sailor lick. The jam during the great Scarlet becomes unusually quiet - and becomes kind of cool, once you lean in to it. Fire is not bad, but not a top one of the month or anything. Terrapin is uptempo, even for Spring '77. They wrestle a bit with the rest of the set, balking without an encore, though there's a major Playing sandwich. With a Comes a Time in the middle (not bad but not, say, 5/21), it's a 37min sequence. It's average for '77 until the very spacey jam with Phil harmonics and rumbles.

1st Set:   B-
2nd Set: B-
Overall = 3 Stars

Highlights:
Brown Eyed Women - easily one of the best ever
Estimated Prophet - slick and punchy - more so on the matrix
Scarlet Begonias - a "listener's" Scar>Fire

SOURCES: The miller.91970 is best. Not a hi-qual SBD at first. The 1st set is extremely boomy and needs serious EQ or a band pass filter. Check the matrix to see if you have better luck. The 2nd set SBD sounds great, and the matrix too. Brown-Eyed Women is on the soundtrack from the Deadhead-crafted film Around the Fire.

This might be the longest Big River I've ever heard or seen on a setlist

A lot of words such as "best" get thrown around here a lot, but IMHO this Comes A Time is arguably the best ever, rivaled only by 5/9/77. The 15 min of Playin' jam before Comes A Time is so relaxed but entirely present and absolutely some of the most beautiful and inspired improvisational music of their entire career.

The sound of the Dead in 77 resonates with me.
I find a mellowness that I really enjoy.
I had only a few tapes from this year so I can only go by what I remember. For me Englishtown was my standard. I absolutely loved that show yet I am finding that was not a typical 77 show.
I think I saw the Kinks on New Years at the Palladium way after that place was concert worthy.
It was hard to imagine the Dead bringing the circus into town for a show there?
But I digress
Set 1

Half-Step ->
Big River
Great combo too bad the sound off for 1/2 step.
The Rio Grande certainly qualifies as a Big River even if the songwriter was talking Mississippi for Big River
-They Love Each Other
Almost like the slow version of F.O.T.D but hey I love to hear Garcia sing.
- New Minglewood Blues
What a rowdy tune. Hippies with attitude!
- It Must Have Been The Roses
Again way mellow Jerry
- Cassidy
Notice the intensity pick up!
- Deal
Solid!!!
- Looks Like Rain
Always like in 1st set
Better with Donna
- Brown Eyed Women
I will concede they don't reach for much
but it is still a great tune.

- Dancing In The Street
These Dancin's to end sets in 76/77 are awesome!

Set 2

Estimated Prophet
Very nice!!!
Scarlet Begonias ->
Fire On The Mountain
Still working this all out
It seems to me building a bridge between two songs is more involved then just busting out a new tune.
-Terrapin Station ->
Nice and late in the night to boot
Playing In The Band ->
Comes A Time ->
Playing In The Band
This is absolutely for me the highlight of the evening. The kind of stuff that might make you just jump on tour if you weren't there already.
18 minutes of Playing into a very gentle Comes a Time back into Playin with a reprise is magnificent.

The first set is average, but big hits at the break. Playin' is a May 1977 tour highlight. The second set is consistently smooth.

delward: I've heard him do that a couple of times, on different scarlet-fires. the only one on top of my head is the one from cornell 5/8/77, somewhere in the scarlet-fire jam
very cool
solid show however, really like the mississippi half- step

This is a strong show, but nothing amazing. Except for "Comes a Time". it's absolutely exquisite!

Any folks who don't like out-of-tune Travis Bean guitars might want to skip this entirely. An otherwise powerful Half Step is sour from the get-go, and Comes A Time is excruciating. And for a similarly-structured second set, the mighty Fox May 19 is on another level entirely. Phil fans will want to check out the improv in Playing in the Band, but with the rest of May coming up this is for completists only.

Good show.

And the bass.

Among the best periods of the Dead's career. In a month full of epic performances, this is an excellent show but I dont love it as much as some other shows from this period. Maybe I need to give it a few more listens. Both Kieth and Donna were having a good night and it shows. The highlight for me is that funky Dancin' to end the first set - I generally like the '76 version best but this one is special.

you know keith is feeling good when you hear him adding in little extras. i love the short blues ending he gives to dancin in the streets after bobby says their takin a break. that one little part made me laugh.

check out weir slippng in a little China cat at 3:14 in Scarlet. too funny

It seems that Big River is often times not recognized as a barn-burner, maybe b/c it's not written by the band, but, damn, this one is HOT!

always gives me goose-bumps.

1977 sbd's have this airy/echo to the vocals i just love

exciting stuff, I enjoy the brown eyed women, even though I find most 77 versions plastic sounding, I much prefer the late 71-72 versions, this one has something that barton hall and other may shows don't. Comes a time again is nice, nothing compared to the 100 year hall, but it's rare enough to warrant a listen. Keith is electric on minglewood, and any 77 playin is worth the listen.

No way this goes anywhere but ozone ...

Breakless ... Sweet ... Jazzy ... Point is the boyz let me go with them ... hell if I know where we went ... but they sure as hell took me somewhere....

Somewhere good that is ....

Note to self: don't forget to take this one with you on your trip to Humboldt ... perfect for during-the-night-driving ... perfect expose-'em-to-da-Dead stuff

wow, what a crazy end to this show! Playing in the band starts out pretty normal, but when the chaos starts, real murky, and dark, uncertainty ensues as it throws you for a loop! great improvisation kinda like the 1974's, and than right into Comes a Time!!! wow, not a song i would usually comment or even listen to, but Comes a TIme blows me away!!! what a version!!! check it out. Other than that, the rest of the show is pretty good

5 stars for the last sequence of playing>comes a time>reprise

This is the version to get! I've already reviewed the previous versions, defending it against everyone dissing it due to to poor sound quality of the first set. Well, now there's nothing to complain about! After the first couple minutes of 1/2 Step, the sound is pristine. Amazing Playing in the Band, excellent(if somewhat short) Scarlet>Fire, and a Comes a Time that rivals 5/21/77. This show sometimes gets lost in the shuffle of the next 4 nights, but it'a a top 5-er for the year, without question. Thank you Charlie, David, and David!

My older brother took me,he wound up taking off his clothes (sans underwear). Not the best version but Terrapin stood out. How sweet to enjoy this 30+ years later. Second show was Englishtown, talk about venue extremes!

I listened to this one song 3 times in one day. It seems to me that jerry was just emotionally spent after playing one of the prettiest most soulful pieces of music I've come across. No need for a rowdy close. Rapp it up and go veg. And fire ain't too shabby either! !

I've never been much of a fan of the second set after the Estimated, even though ScarletFireComes aTime gets all the raves. For me, the real gem is the first set, culminating in my favorite Brown Eyed Women, and one of my favorite Dancins. We used to call this tape "rubber" for Jerry's rubbery sound during the Dancin jam. The Half Step is fantastic and the Musta Been the Roses is also among my favorite versions. I haven't tired of this set since the day I first heard it in the early 80s.

Thanks again, Charlie Miller (wizard of the Dead archive). This is a beautiful offering!